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Fishermen catch fewer birds these days

01 august 2018

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For four month an observer engaged by WWF-Russia was collecting data on seabird bycatch onboard a longline vessel “Gloria”. The vessel was fishing for cod and halibut.

The vessel
sailed in several fishing subzones of the Sea of Okhotsk and the North Pacific.
According to the data collected, the vessel conducted 351 bottom longline
installations. Each installation was accompanied by an installation of a single
streamer line to repel seabirds. The observer registered 35 cases of seabirds
by-caught, and no endangered species were among them.

“Thirty-five birds in four months – it is a very low number, taking into account the average seabird mortality during longline fishing. This obviously is a result of using a single streamer line,” says Sergey Korostelev, the Marine Program Coordinator of WWF-Russia’s Kamchatka Office.

“It is important to highlight, that this was the first time we worked with a fishing company from Primorsky krai. Before that, of all companies of the Russian Far East, we cooperated only with fishing companies from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Now, we have proofs that streamer lines are used in other regions outside Kamchatka,” says Sergey Rafanov, the head of Kamchatka/Bering Sea Ecoregional Office of WWF-Russia.

It is hard
to tell how many fishing vessels in the Russian Far East implement streamer
lines. However, if the statements of fishermen themselves are frank, it is
possible to suppose a decline in the number of seabirds bycaught in the recent
years.